CRC for Greenhouse Accounting

Research Programs

Research in Project A2 has concentrated on three areas:

• improving field techniques for measuring above and below-ground carbon pools;
• improving understanding of the effect of species, growing environment, age and management on carbon distribution above and below-ground;
• estimation of forest biomass using remote sensing.

Work on the first of these topics has been undertaken in NSW, on efficient sampling strategies for estimating above-ground biomass and on the use of Ground Penetrating Radar for non-destructive estimation of root biomass, and in WA, on methods and equipment for sampling root biomass.

Work on the second topic has also been undertaken in NSW and has concentrated on determining how environment, age and forest types affect allometric relations for Eucalyptus pilularis (blackbutt). It was found that the allometric relationship was conserved across a range of conditions. This again is well focused and well executed research, of obvious importance for biomass carbon accounting at both project scale and higher levels. The Panel is unclear how the CRC expects that these results will be generalised into "rules" for carbon accounting.

The third topic has been pursued at study sites in NSW and Queensland. Remote sensing data collection is complete at both sites, and field data collection has been completed at the Queensland site. Again, this work is well focused, well designed and has made good progress. When completed, it should provide valuable guidance on the effectiveness and accuracy of remote sensing techniques for estimating above-ground biomass in a variety of Australian vegetation systems.

In terms of carbon in woodlands, rapid effective progress has been made by the CRC through a timely synthesis of the huge volumes of data collected over a number of years in Queensland. This work is an excellent model for the translation of large amounts of field data into synthesised results that are useful for the national inventory. The results also raise intriguing and important questions about the causality of the woodlands sink. Synthesis of other work in the CRC, especially the careful documentation of land-use and land-cover change, may shed some light on this issue.

The work in Project A3 on wood life cycle analysis has two major goals:

• to determine the amount and period carbon is stored in wood products processed in Australia from Australian-grown trees; and
• to determine the effect on the net greenhouse gas balance achieved by substituting wood products for alternative materials in a range of building designs.

Research so far undertaken relates largely to the first of these goals. Achievements include substantial progress in collecting data, by means of surveys and field audits, on end uses for forest products in Australia, production of preservative-treated timber, quantities of waste wood associated with the manufacture of different types of timber products, wastage of wood during house construction, and the service life of forest products in houses. Work has started on determining the rate of decomposition of forest products sent to landfill.

Work is progressing well and all second year milestones were achieved. The data being obtained on post-harvest partitioning should materially improve the quality of this aspect of the NCAS. Initial results on decomposition rates of wood products in landfill appear to differ significantly from the default assumptions currently used in models of methane evolution from landfill sites. This work is being conducted in close consultation with landfill site managers, but the CRC should also engage as soon as possible with those involved in estimating landfill emissions (various parts of the AGO other than NCAS, other scientists, consultants). Considerable resources are now being directed to reducing landfill methane emissions and it is important that estimates of abatement from these activities are based on the best available data.

Only preliminary work has so far been undertaken towards the second goal. It appears that the CSIRO researchers are starting on the task of collecting information about house designs. It may be possible to advance this work by drawing on information held by other organisations, notably CSIRO Building Research, but also others, which hold data on the designs of very large numbers of individual houses, assembled over a number of years for other research purposes. Similarly, in comparing the "embodied" emissions of timber products with those of other building materials it will be essential to draw as far as possible on work which has already been undertaken by other researchers, since this work is exceedingly data intensive and time consuming. At the same time, care will be needed in choosing the information, as published work in this field is of very uneven quality.

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